The Spirit
by Loethlin
Summary: Remus seems to lost the touch with the Christmas spirit. Sirius helps him remember. SLASH! Oneshot. Now fixed and edited slightly for better reading experience.


**Disclaimer**: Not mine but J.K. Rowling's, of course.

**Warnings**: SLASH! Extremely crude humour. And sappiness. God hates me for hating Christmas.

**Edit**: The story is now fixed and edited slightly for better reading experience.

_For Jack, who hates Christmas just as much as I do and hates slash just as much as Christmas._

The weather was horrible, wet and sticky, cold, yet not cold enough. One was confused about what to wear. Was it jumper and a coat and the risk of being hot and sweaty underneath it, or just jumper and the risk being chilled and soaked to the bone by the wind and the rain..?

Then, there was the 'family' thing. Somewhere, in the bottom of his mind there lingered memories, all in shades of green, of a Christmas tree, with little green lightbulbs, the Muggle style. Candy canes, tight hugs by mother and father, fire in the hearth and the taste of the eggnog his father always allowed him to try when his mother wasn't looking.

Merry like hell. He couldn't remember being merry. All he could conjure was a stream of flesh-ripping, bone-crushing full moons around the time.

Maybe he was pessimistic at the moment. He wouldn't know.

Ah, how could he forget about the presents!

Oh, wait. He didn't have anything he could trade for the presents. Being poor was horrible.

Remus sighed, defeated, and threw the Christmas card into the wastepaper bin. Christmas cards didn't matter all that much as well.

He rested his forehead on his palm.

All of it didn't matter, really. It wasn't a religious holiday anymore. Wizards didn't even go to church! It wasn't a family holiday either, not when one didn't have any! So, why bother? All that was left of it were tiny little lightbulbs all over London, children greedy for presents and sentimental adults, waiting for hugs and declarations of love that rarely came. Same old songs on the radio, every year, like a broken record, played over and over, trying to be the flints that would spark the light of the Christmas spirit.

Pity that to Remus, Christmas spirit was as foreign a concept as being anything else then what he was.

He scratched the words he had written on another card. It was really no use.

A hand patted him lightly on the shoulder and he turned his head abruptly, covering his pitiful Christmas wishes with his palm.

He looked into bright grey eyes, all shiny, pupils slightly dilated from the lack of lighting in the room.

Sirius was doing the eyebrows thing at him again. He raised them slightly, as if surprised, one narrow line forming on his forehead, like a river's valley.

Remus stroked his cheek with his callused thumb, feeling rough stubble and sharp bones and still oh-so-soft skin under his palm.

Sirius' head leaned to the touch, greedy, like the children for presents, for the caresses.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to write Christmas cards…"

Sirius' lips formed a little "O", then curved into a soft, comforting smile.

Christmas was when hey made love for the first time, all these years ago.

They were in their dormitory alone, everyone else gone to see their families. Only two of them, outcasts, actually, one by choice, other by necessity. They were so lonely, so lost. They didn't really know what was happening and what was that they were feeling. They were too young, too innocent, too scared.

Remus was staring at the levitating candles when Sirius entered the room, stuffed beyond comprehension after the midnight trip to the kitchen, drowsy with so much turkey and pudding and eggnog.

But he stared at the candles as well. He said it was just a spell, but came to stand right beside Remus, their shoulders touching. Remus replied that it still was amazing, the way they could do that, only they forgot how amazing it was. Sirius then said that he hadn't forgot, he just hadn't given it much thought, but now that Remus mentioned it…

They both stared at the candles that were illuminating the room in flickering golden light.

Then they stared at each other, curiously, eagerly with small, content smiles on their lips.

And then Sirius leaned and kissed Remus.

Then, Sirius said he was sorry, but Remus shut him up with his tongue probing Sirius' oral cavity very eagerly.

Then there were pants and gasps and moans. Sirius' pupils were so dilated that only a thin ribbon of dark grey was visible.

They were so frightened and excited and confused they barely knew what they were doing; the heap of clothes and limbs, all messed up.

Pants and gasps escalated and there they were, their bellies and hands sticky with the evidence of their satisfaction, soft tongues stroking, breaths exchanged and declarations of love mingled with apologies could be heard.

And then Sirius farted.

It blew up all the mood to the orbit as nicely as a skilled bartender with a cocktail shaker filled with nitro-glycerine.

There was nothing left to do but to laugh.

They laughed so hard then, so hard that after all these years Remus remembered how his ribs ached.

He let out a little laugh, a shadow of that giggling fit lingered somewhere in it.

He pulled a strand of Sirius' hair to bring their faces closer. And they stared at each other, content little smiles on their lips.

Shared breath became shared saliva, when they kissed, lightly at first, but then Sirius' teeth raked Remus' lower lip, closely followed by the tongue demanding an entrance.

It was an all too familiar path for Remus, the one he so eagerly travelled whenever he could.

When they lay, sprawled on the dusty carpet in the drawing room of Twelve Grimmauld Place, all sticky and sated and exhausted, cuddled so close it was hard to say where their skin touched, Sirius stroked Remus' hair and kissed the tip of his nose lightly.

"So, do you want any help with the Christmas cards?" he asked.

"Not with wording my wishes, no," Remus replied. "But you sure could help me remember what the Christmas spirit is all about again."

"Consider it done," Sirius said and stuck his tongue into Remus' ear.


End file.
